<p>a student with extremely low statistics (ex. a 2.0 weighted GPA) will throw off the average GPA data of the college, so rather than including them in the school’s data by accepting them, they will waitlist them, with intent of accepting.</p>
<p>umm… i doubt it. one person w/ a 2.0 gpa wouldn’t throw off their averages very much, and then they risk losing the person to another school.</p>
<p>they waitlist so that if enough people dont enroll, they can get people from the waitlist to fill the class…</p>
<p>I doubt your theory. More are like the story that circulates about schools like WUSTL. Students & parents treat a rejection very differently than a waitlist. Traditionally the waitlist used to fill any vacancies and so the kids on it were pretty much accepted and often actually eventually enrolled. But no law says waitlist has to mean that, so some schools are starting to waitlist most of the kids they don’t accept so that future applicants will reason “Joe got waitlisted at X, and since my stats are similar I’ve got a good chance of getting in”.</p>